Editorial Independence — There's confusion - way too much confusion - about my status at TechCrunch and TechCrunch's status at Aol after last week's announcement that I was launching a venture fund, partially backed by Aol. — The multiple conflicting statements made by Aol.

Google Goes Big With Its Hulu Bid — Hulu's corporate owners are currently mulling bids from three would-be buyers: Amazon, Yahoo, and the Dish Network. — And then there's Google. The search giant has also made an offer for the video site, but it seems to be playing a different sport …

Groupon Reevaluating IPO Plans Due to Market Volatility — Groupon Inc. is reevaluating its plans to go public in the face of stock market volatility, said a person familiar with the matter. — The Chicago-based daily deals site isn't cancelling its initial public offering, said this person …

Facebook iOS app gets monster update to 3.5 — . — Facebook's iOS app just got a monster update, including the following: — Made it easier to share with who you want — Added the ability to tag friends and places in posts — Added the ability to share external links from a web view

Conde Nast Spins Out Reddit, Without Letting Go — Five years after buying Reddit, Conde Nast is giving the social news site a gentle shove out the door. — The publisher isn't pushing Reddit very far away, though. It is spinning out the company as a standalone operation, but will retain full ownership of it, for now.

Twitter and Bing Renew Social Search Partnership — Twitter and Bing have renewed their real-time search partnership, the two announced today in an enigmatic Twitter chat between their two brand accounts. — The two anthropomorphized accounts reminisced about their past two years …

You just shared a link. How long will people pay attention? — How long is a link “alive” before people stop caring? Does it matter what kind of content it is, or where you shared it? At bitly we see a lot of links, and while every link is special, we're learning a few general principles that we can share.